Fifty Years Ago in Shawnee and Pottawatomie ... - Digital Collections

FIFTY YEARS AGO IN SHAWNEE AND
POTTAWATOMIE COUNTY
By Ernestine Gravley*
The year 1903 in Shawnee and Pottawatomie County marked
the opening of a new era. The town had been established in 18951
md the eight years preceding half a century ago saw the village
mushroom to a booming young city.
Whites and Indians had learned to live together in harmony
and real industry and business were underway. Land mas fertile
and plentiful, selling for from $5 to $GO an acre.% Great numbers
of men with their families arrived daily from the East to settle in
this fabulous land of plenty.
The country was still looked upon as a frontier but the element
of danger was far behind and hardships were not unavoidable.
Shawnee was never a cattle town in the strictest sense but a trading
center and Indian town. One historian has observed that few gun-
wearing cowboys appeared on Shawnee's streets, either before or
after the stumps were pulled from the middle of Main.
Coming of the railroads made Shawnee the metropolitan
center of the county although Teeurnsell was the county seat and
a much older town.3 Every effort mas made by Tecumseh leaders
to bring the first railroad their way, but geographic conditions' and
other factors favored the newer and larger town of Shawnee.
The latter grew phenomenally and bitter rivalry grew between
the two towns as Shawnee sought the county seat as early as 1899.5
County elections allowed Tecumseh to win again in 1909 and
1911.6 Shawnee forced the issue and won in 1930, but all the early
years of the century saw the two-city tug of war over both the
railroad issue and that of the county seat.
Shawnee gathered to see the first train pull in on the Choctaw,
Oklahoma & Gulf tracks here on July 4, 189Ei7 There 'was a big
* Ernestine Gravley has had articles published in the Arkansas Historical Qw-
tdy, and several of her feature stories have appeared in The Daily Oldahoman
(1953). Mrs. Gravley makes her home in Shawnee, and is a member of the National
League of American Pen Women.-Ed
1Luther B. Hill, A History of the State of Oklahoma, (Chicago & New York,
1909) VoL I, p. 492.
2Scrapbook in the collection of Mrs. D. H. Cofer, of Shawnee.
8 Hi op. A, Vol. I, p. 492.
4 lbia
6 lbid.
6 John Fortson, Pots Cormtry a d Wliat Has Come of It, (Shawnee, 1936), p. 14.
rHi& op. tit, VoL I, p. 492.

parade and celebration. Among the merrymakers was a one-
family band consisting of a Mr. Coffman and four sons, Raymond,
Harvey, George and Charlton, playing three fifes, snare drum and
brrss.8
The first Santa Fe train arrived on June 29, 1904,s and the
Texas and Oklahoma Railway announced plans of coming to
Shawnee, the same year after Charles Effenger made the first
donation to the site fund on February 17, 1903.1° Freight receipts
for the year ending March 1, 1903 were almost double that of
any other city in Oklahoma, according to a local newspaper of
that year.
Not to be completdy outdone in the matter of railroads,
aggressive Tecumseh built a short line to the Choctaw, Oklahoma
$ Gulf (later Rock Island) junction in Shawnee.lL It's train, the
"Lillian Russell" was the butt of many cruel jokes, but it did a
thriving business nevertheless. Roads being poor, passenger busi-
ness was brisk on the junction. In one year the railroad shipped
11,000 bales of cotton out of Tecumseh.12 One newspaper carried
an account when "the Lillian Russell, fast mail train collided with
a buggy on one of its four daily trips. The buggy lost a wheel but
the engine was laid up in the shops for a whole day.13
While the railroad dispnte was raging, rumors flew among
the citizens on both sides of the Canadian. News would reach
Shawnee that Tecumseh had lost, and mobs of citizens would
celebrate by running to the nearest blacksmith shop to shoot
anvils. This was done by placing powder between two anvils
and touching a match to it. Citizens of Tecun~seh when awakened
by the loud noise, would mourn their luck all night. Perhaps the
next night, the procedure would be reversed, with the people of
Shawnee suffering while Tecumseh gleefully shot anvils."
After a few years, the Tecumseh Railway company made a
deed of sale, conveying ownership to the Choctaw, Oklahoma &
Gulf for the sum of $12,000.15 The railway company built a 20-
mile line from Tecumseh to Asher in 1903,16 and all these holdings
later became a part of the Rock Island in Pottawatomie County.
8U~emoirsn of Mrs. Sarah Worthington, of Shawnee, daughter of F. A. Hill.
Q Hill, op. &., Vol. I, p. 492.
10 Shawnee M y
Herald, Feb. 20, 1903.
11 Hill, op. cit, Vol. I, p. 492.
1% Fortson, op. cit., p- 13.
Worthington, "Memoirs."
14 Oklahoma, A Guide to the Sooner State, American Guide Series (Norman,
1941,. p. 194.
15 History of the Rock Island in Oklahoq Rock Island Railways, manuscript
notea " Hill, op. cit, Vol. I, p. 492.

me C. 0. & Q. R. R. was taken over by lease on March 24, 1904
by the Rock Island for a period of 999 years.17
Half a centv ago, 1903-04,18 the first brick paving was
going down in Shawnee but mainly, the streets were hub-deep to
the wagons in mud and, in dry weather, were so deep with dust
that when the wind blew, one could hardly see across the street.
Board sidewalks skirted the t-horoughfare on either side.
There were several one-story brick buildings here, one of the
first of these erected by a Mr. Wayland, who hauled the bricks
from Oklahoma City, fording the river at Sweeney's Crossing.'@
Shawnee had offered Tecumseh business men a lot for every brick
building they would construct and a number of them came over.
Most of the buildings, however, were wooden structures with
porches, none on the same level with its neighbors.20
Up and down Main street on the north side, the principal
business houses in 1903 Vintage Grocery, Fanny Reese's
millinery shop, Drs. Crampton and Henderson, Harryman's drug
store, Shawnee National Bank, Wright's store, Keller and Logan
barber shop, Remington-Pottenger drug store, Charley Miles'
jewelry, Brown bakery, Christney building and Becker theater.
On the south was Martin Brothers bottling works. At the
corner of Main and Beard was A. B. Carroll's drygoods store,
followed by Pace furniture, First Nat

Mammoth store where they were kept in barrels. Of come, we
would never allow a male clerk to wait on US."^
Wagon yards and mule barns were many and blacksmiths were
kept busy. Harry Johnson,t4 who also made lightning rods was
head of the "General Blacksmith and Carriage Shop." This estab-
lishment employed 24 men, manufactured as many as 75 buggies
and 175 wagons a year, and shod about 150 horses a day. Johnson
recalls that a fine buqgy retailed at $125. Best known wagon
brands were " Studebaker," "Moline," "Springfield" and
" Webber."
Two gray horses stood ready in stalls at the fire station one
block south of the Mammoth B~ilding.~5 Harness hung above
already hooked up to a ladder wagon. A pull rope dropped the
harness onto the horses, the collars were snappd together and they
were ready for a run. On the wagon were the words: Our Hotto--
Rescue. A bell tower in front of the building had a bell with a
double clapper and two ropes rang out the fire alarms.
Next door was the police station where prisoners were chained
to the floor. P. A. Hillz6 was police chief and there were eight
other men to assist him. J. T. Farrall was mayor, E. C. Stanard
was police judge, and Bill Day, sheriff.
A public watering fountain for horses was set up in the
center of what is now Broadway at the corner of Ninth. This
useful and ornamental object was known all over the country and
regretfully removed when the streetcars came to town about 1903.
The relic now stands iu the 200 block of East 7th Street.47
Fifty years ago was a memorable time for Shawnee. Both the
Santa Fe and the Rock Island established shops which employed
several hundreds of rnen.?8 More hotels were built and boarding
houses flourished.
The Shawnee Roller Mills, later named Shawnee Milling
companyp9 and one of the largest industries of its kind in the
country was getting into big production for its size, with a capacity
of 100 barrels of flour a day. J. Lloyd Ford bought the business
in 1906.
2s lbid.
24 Joseph B. Thoburn, A Standard Histor). of Oklahoma: (Chicago & New York.
1916) Vol. IV, p. 1408.
tJFortson, op. cit., p. 40.
28 Worthington, "Memoirs."
27 Shawnee Chamber of Commerce pamphlet.
z8 Oklahoma, A Guide, . . . . . p. 194.
2s Interview with J. Lloyd Ford Sr, owner of Shawnee Milling Co.

A claudburst on May 29, 1903 destroyed many homea and
wasbed out railroad tracks near town. Fire destroyed eight bnsi-
ness blocks in Shawnee on July 16, 1903. A strike of city plumbers
just laying the first pipe was settled with an agreement of an
eighthour working day for $3.50 on August 6, 1903.90
All the 1903 graduates from Shawnee Highschool were girle:
Bertha Ellis, Lena Linn and Pearl Linn.81
George E. McKinnis was postmaster in 1903, and long an
educator. One evening that year, as he talked with two dinner
guests in his home, Dm. E. E. Chivers and N. B. Rairden, the
idea for Oklahoma Baptist University was born.%' McKinnis did
probably more than any other individual to establish the Univer-
sity in Shawnee, eight years later.
In 1903,= a franchise was voted the Shawnee-Tecumseh
Traction company for the interurban line and streetcars did a
thriving business for several years. Many think this did more for
neighborly relatioils of the two cities than any factor of the day.
An article in the old Sturm7s Oklahoma Magazine of May, 1908
read: "Tecumseh's future is insured because it is in the suburbs
of Shawnee, the second city in the state and the most likely to
become the permanent state capital."
Black gold excitement was real in Shawnee in October, 1903
when representatives of the Pennsylvania Oil & Gas company
announced intention of drilling four test wells and the city council
voted a gas franchise to the company, effective on completion.
It was twenty years later, however, before real oil prosperity came
here.s"
Cotton waa the principal farm crop at the time of our story.
In 1903, there were shipped from Shawnee by rail 555 cars of
cattle, 15 cars of horses, 100 cars of hogs, 245 cars of corn, 400
cars of cottonseed and products, 400 cars of potatoes and 26,000
bales of cotton.55
A pioneer resident, William Keller observed : "I've seen
Main street so filled with cotton bales that you could travel from
the Santa Fe tracks to Union street (about five blocks) by jump
ing from one pile of bales to another."
-
80 Interview with Miss Jennie McDivitt of Shawnee; Joseph B. Thoburn aad
Muriel Wright, OklaliolRa: A History of the State and Its People, (New York,
1929) VOL m, p. 288.
$1 Cofer, scrapbook collection.
82 Thobarn and Wright, op. cit. Vol. HI, p. 265.
mHii op. cit., Vol. I, p. 493.
UO- A Glridc.. . . , p. 195.
=Shew Daily Herald, Jan. 26,1904.

The fimt bale of cotton raised here was an accident. H.
Barnett had bought too much cottonseed for feeding purpoees and
bir wife pestered him day and night about the pile in the yard.
At last, when he could take no more, he took the seeds out and
scattered them across a field. With no cultivation, he had 2,000
pounds of cotton that fall.36
The Evenhg Netus and the Daily Herald, &pagere, were the
leading Shawnee newspapers half a century ag0.~7 Each published
a weekly edition besides. The Shawnee Qua was a smaller paper.
All were civic boosters as this excerpt shows: "Shawnee is called
the Forest City and the natural beauty of her magnificent groves
are a present delight, one long to be enjoyed if intelligent care is
afforded them. The social life of Shawnee is equal in character
to that of any city her size in the union."
Horse racing was a popular pastime and just west of the city
was a race track and grandstand. The first baseball club was
organized about this time. The Shawnee Blues were champions
of Indian Territory. They were : Santany, catcher ; Potts, catcher ;
Bankhead, second base ; Ogee, shortstop ; Jameson, first base ;
Bhelby, left field; Vandine, third base; Swartzel, pitcher and
right field; and Congdon, manager.38
Lush grazing land surrounded Shawnee. One oldtimer recalls
that at the end of Kickapoo street, just south of the tracks were
a hundred acres literally covered with longhorn steers, possibly
3,000 of them. Steak, she remembers, was 10 cents a pound.
On January 1, 1903, the 8hawinee Evening NewsSB published
an historical edition announcing the city's population as being
12,000 and almost equal with Oklahoma City. This was fantastic
growth considering the fact that it was on September 22, 189146
that the "run" by white pioneers was made into Pottawatomie
country.
Miss Etta B. Ray staked the first claim on the site of Shawnee
and she and her husband of a short time later, Henry G. Beard
built the first log cabin here, which is preserved for ,history and
stands in Woodland park." Pottawatomie County was first known
as County B and was later named for the Potawatomi tribe."
88 Fortoon, op. cit, p. 69.
n OltloAomq A Guide . . . . , p. 1%.
88 Cofer, wrapbook collection.
88 Worthington, "Memoirs."
tho burn and Wright, op. 5, Vol. 13, p. 555.
41 tu., VOI. In, p. uz
atbid, VoL 11, p 555. (The officially approved name of tbe hibc i~ "Pota-
W8baPt''-Ed.)

Mr. Beard named both the town and the county and war the fint
may or.&
The town was biult on the rise immediately north of the North
Ca~~adian river around a trading post operated by Clay and Blosaom.
It was called in turn Brockway, Forest City and finally
Shawnee, in tribute to the Indian tribe first to make its home
on this land.M There was previously a postoffice designation for
" Shawneetown, "45 about the present site of the Indian Sanitoriurn,
sonth of Sbawnee, halfway to Tecumseh.
Homesteaders Henry Beard, Charles Farrall and Martin Beutley
laid out the village and started angling for railroads.& What is
now Farrall street, south of the Rock Island tracks was the main
street and it was several years later before the town extended
further north than Highland street.q7
Names of streets, as the town developed were chosen thusly:
Beard and Farrall were for origiual townsiters; the city market
centered on what is named Market street; Park street was M,
named because it ended at. Farrall park; Louisa was for Farrall's
wife. Other streets named for promoters were Aydelotte, Bentley,
Cammack, Chapman, Darrow, Draper, Douglas, Hobson, Pottenger,
Wallace, Dill, Tucker, Wood and Whittaker. Numerous others
were for wives of these promoters: Rosa, Alice, Fay, Elizabeth,
Dorothy and so on.48
History of Shawnee would at no period be complete without
at least touching upon the part in the drama played by the Indians.
The Shawnee tribed9 had lived contentedly in the forest of Okla-
homa and Indian territories for many years before the Potawa-
tomi pushed down from Kansas, and earlier from the Great
Lakes region. It was during the Civil War period that the Citizen
band of the Potawatomi (those who intermarried with whites
and held individual plots of land) came to this country, while the
Prairie band clung to tribal law and tradition, remaining in Kansaa.
William Griffinstein, the German trader who founded Wichita, .
Kansas married a Pottawatomie woman and came here to take
up her allotment. Here he founded the little town of Bnrnette"
in what is now the southern part of the county and which wro
named for Joe Burnett, father of the well-known Lee Burnett of to-
UlM, Vol. III, p. 412.
44Fort~on, op. cic, p. 36.
&Hill, op. cit., VoL I, p. 492.
46Interview with George E. McKinnis; Thoburn and Wright, op. cit., Vo1. 111,
P. 262.
4? IW
Ulbid,
UThob~ and Wright, op. cir, Vol. 11, p. 555.
mhtenierr with be Burnett, of Sham, son of founder.

day's Shawnee. The latter's grandfather Abrom, was a fignre in
history, the 2-40-pound Potawatomi chief who died in Kansss and
whose grave is marked by an historical marker.=l
Burnett was one of the oldest towns in the county and it wan
literally moved to Tribbey and Macomb later, when the rail-
road went through those little places. Today, nothing remains of
the town of Burnett but the old Griffinstein home, a landmark?2
In 1900, the present Indian agency was established with man-
agement of the Shawnee and Potawatomi who were at last
settled on allotments by the government after years of bickering.
Missionaries of the Friends Society of Quakers had built the Shaw-
nee Mission schoolm and Frank A. Thackery, superintendent, also
acted as disbursing agent, combining the work of the agency and
the school.
The Kickapoo reservation lay in the area of McLoud and north
of that town, the Friend's Mission was active, but a few years later,
the Shawnee agency became the center under whose jurisdiction
are still the five tribes: Potawatomi, Shawnee, Sauk and Fox,
Iowa and Kickapoo.54
Ideas of civilization and education were new to the Indiana
when the white man arrived in Pottawatomie country, and two
fine Indian men will go down in history as doing more than any
others to further the progress of their people in a time of confusion
and unrest. They were Thomas Wildcat Alford of near Tecumseh
and John King, of the site of McLoud, both Shawnees. These two
as lads overcame great obstacles to attend Hampton Institute in
Virginia against the will of the more backward members of their
tribe, to become educated for the purpose of guarding the rights
and furthering the progress of their beloved people.55
Ghost towns across the Pottawatomie map, due to the course
of the railroads and the later ushering in of Oklahoma as a dry
state are several. One of them was Moral, so called because Brooks
Walker, the first settler allowed no saloons. Principal occupation
of the residents is jokingly said to have been catching squirrels
for Kansas City and St. Louis parks. Other towns long gone are
the Corner, near present day Asher, Young's Crossing, Violet
Springs, west of what is now Konawa and KeoM Falls in the
northeast c0rner.m
61 Ibid.
a Ibi&
HThomm Wildcat Alfo~d, Cidizcrtion, aa told to Florence Drake, (Piorman,
1936) p. 74.
dTboburn and Wright, op. ci+ Vol. II, p. 5%
Alford, op. tit., p. 89.
OP- dr, PP 24 2k2%23*

Pifly Yeem dgo in Rhaumee and Pottawatomk County 889
These border towns were wide-open brawling places which
sprang up to serve men travellers the fire water they could not
obtain across the line. They were hangouts for outlaws, among
them the famed rustlers, Bob and Bill Christian. Here was the
scene of activity of A1 Jenning, notorious train robber who later
reformed and crusaded against frontier. crime. His father, J. D.
F. Jenning was an early Pottawatomie County judge.
When Congress divided the land into Oklahoma and Indian
territories, the border was what is now the Seminole-Pottawatomie
county line. Under law, Oklahoma territory was met and on this
side, Indian territory was dry. Hence, the above named border
saloon towns which wrote bloody history fifty years ago.
Travellers on cattle trails riding horses and wearing boots
got liquor at these "last chance" saloons and hid it i11 their boots
to enter dry territory. Here was coined the terms "bootle~ger"
and "last chance ", still national catchwords in today's l~quor
traffic.
Oldtimers recall that foremost of the county saloon keepers
were Andy Morrison, George young, Bill Conner, Jesse West, D. N.
Beatty and Dr. N. Stutsman. Rivalry in this business caused many
gun battles and much bloodshed. There were 62 saloons and two
licensed distilleries in Pottawatomie County fifty years ago?
The Shawnee Herald, in a 1903 editorial said that "Shawnee's
daily consurnpt,ion amounts to 700 gallons of beer and 25 gallons
of whiskey." When the Choctaw, Oklahoma & Gulf passenger
trains stopped at the Shawnee depot, the conductors would call:
"Shawnee-twenty minutes for lunch and to see a man killed." So
reports one pioneer who heard the call many times.
A number of fine citizens are today living memorials of un-
selfish promotion of a great city and county. Pioneers who made
their contributions are too many to mention, but these few come
to mind: Bobert R. Hendon, Geo. E. McKinnis, E. L. Estes, Jesse
Pelphery, Geo. IC. Hunter, J. Lloyd Ford, Geo. H. Kerfoot, Dm.
B. F. Nisbett, G. S. Baxter and W. M. Gallaher, AP. M. Henderson,
Kib Warren, G. C. Aberuathy and Sid Clarke.
One typical example is Clarence Robinson, now municipal
judge of Shawnee.58 Judge Robinson mas an educator in the early
years and as superintendent, organized the 117 Pottawatomie
County schools under statehood, riding horseback hundreds of miles
a year for six years to complete the job. Earlier, as mayor of
Tecumseh, he championed her cause for the county seat, meanwhile
serving as president of the board of education and studying law.
57 Ibid., p. 20.
5gInterview with Mrs. Clarence Robison, wife of municipal judge of Shawnee!.

When Shawnee strode ahead as the real hub of the county, Judge
]&obison, never a man to hold grudges came here in order to lrerve
better. In addition to his work as a practising attorney for 40 years,
he has continued almost constantly as a public official and an
educator. Scores of other citizens have paralleled this record in
the county and again it has been proven that people are what basi-
cally make a town.
The "good old days" were here in 1903 in all their glory.
Despite the brawl that goes with settlement and early growth of
any town, Shawnee was even then a church town, prominently
Baptist. The churches were filled to capacity every service, and
summertime revival meetings brought the gospel forcibly before
the public. Civic clubs were springing into prominence and the
Chamber of Commerce was boosting our advantages, and justifiably.
Thanks to establishment of both railroad shops and a number
of other industries, times were good here fifty years ago, and
money was spent freely. Patent mdicine shows flourished on street
corners on Saturday nights. Local theaters, notably the Becker
brought top stock company players here with everything from
vaudeville to 0pera.~9
Sara Bernhardt appeared here that year in "Camille" and set
a local style fad. The Reeker had 808 reserved and 400 general
admission seats and always had big houses. Dorothy and Lillian
Qish, later great actresses, lived as little girls near the Santa Fe
tracks in Shawnee and played around the nearby blacksmith shop
with other girls and b0ys.~0
Older residents remember an old gentleman, Tom Wright, a
colorful person who used to walk daily up the middle of Main
street, followed by his pet goose.
Benson Park,. between Shawuee and Tecumseh was central
Oklahoma's brightest spot for the first quarter of thia century:'
though nothing remains of it today. Open streetcars were loaded
every evening and Sunday, particularly, with laughing, singing
pleasure seekers bound for Benson Park.
Facilities were ample in addition to the natural beauty of the
spot. There were a baseball diamond, a roller coaster, a band shell
and outdoor auditorium, a skating rink and a large swimming pool
called "The Plunge". Sunday School picnics were always held
there, school and social outings and family fats from over the
Cofer, scrapbook collection. (FOE history of Shawnee's Episcopal Church,
see Rev. Franklin C. Smith, "Pioneer Beginnings at Emmanuel, Shawnee," The
Cbodt? of Oklahomq Vol. XXIV, No. 1 (Spring, 1949). pp. 2-14.-Ed.)
60 lbrb
01 lbid

entire county gathered in Benson Park. Oldtimers declare that
we youngsters have no idea what we missed.
Celebrities were many who came to the Park, including Eugene
V. Debs, socialist candidate for president, Bob Fitzsimmons, one
time heavyweight champion of the world and Annette Kellenwul,
who created a local scandal by wearing a sleeveless and leglets
bathing suit for her dip in "The Plunge ".
I Popular, though short-lived was another play spot, the Old Mill
resort built by George A. Strauss, northeast of town. Here oper-
ated the first outboard motor in Oklahoma, it was claimed.6p
C. L. Estes built a proud boat, the "Shawnee Queen" and gave
her several practise runs on the North Canadian river from the
Beard Street Bridge to the Old Mill Dam, some five or six mi1es.a
Builder and captain Estes booked excursion runs for weeks ahead
only to find that some crank smashed the propellors one night. The
culprit was never found and short1 y afterward, the war department
declared the river unnavigible. Estes' "floating palace" never
plied the river, but she lives in the minds of many local oldtimem.
Yes, 1903 was a memorable year. Shawnee was flexing her
muscles for greater growth. Newcomers flocked in, business and
industry boomed, but life nevertheless had a leisurely paoe and
Shawnee folk were singing "In the Good Old Summertime", "Bird
in a Gilded Cage" and "Sweet Adeline" with the rest of the nation.